Devs not wanting to deal with empty containers is devs not wanting to recycle, it's like how they make new content that has problems, and then they don't want to deal with the problems, so they just double down. Like the whole realism thing. This is banter, disregard if it makes you queasy.
As for the comment above:
Acid in plastic bottle = Acid + plastic bottle
Water in glass jar = Water + glass jar
Murky water in glass jar = Murky water + glass jar
I did like the fact that I'm no longer heating generic mason jars directly on a campfire.
I also like the fact that shelves become empty, and that trash just disappears when there's nothing in the trash.
Nightstands popping open and then no longer being usable as chests seems reasonable in context of the contents being overridden by loot respawn.
Bird nests shouldn't contain feathers, they should be made of feathers. Whack them to get the feathers. It would break the eggs, makes sense.
Glass jars no longer existing makes me stare at water only to enter a deep arguing contest with myself, trying to find any reasonable immersion-appealing explanation.
Best I could come up with is that the virus is waterborne,
but then that would make you infected if you swam in it with any sort of open wound.
It would make sense that boiling it wouldn't kill the virus, since there's these burnt zombies, unless there's some lore explanation like,
"the zombies are still programmed to act like zombies because that's what the virus does to the body", though then it wouldn't make sense for them to die from fire.
If the virus is waterborne, and it can't be killed by boiling, then murky water shouldn't be found in toilets anymore.
The virus would have to not be airborne for dew collectors to make sense, though they would become infected if any zombie dies nearby enough to splash one droplet.
The virus could also be everywhere in the sense that everybody is already infected, but,
only the undead carry the 'activated' virus that can trigger the virus in a living host to rise up.
Distilling the murky water would work, and I'd much rather have a distillery than a dew collector. Dew collectors look ugly, they're only good for one thing.
With distilleries you could make more than just water. Would give an extra purpose to all that corn.
Either way, glass jars disappearing, I am not a fan. I'm basically bound to spend the first minimum six hours of gameplay scrounging for workbench books and something to drink. I get that they want it to be more looting focused, but this is negative reinforcement. There's no other way.
It looks even worse when you compare the fact that, by the time you have all your desired crafting skills, you've already found way better loot.
On top of that, all the antibiotics are gone, and honey is incredibly rare. Once I'm infected, I can just spend 10 days running around for the water I constantly need all the while running past all the rivers and lakes. You can spend literally every hour of every day for 14 days, looking for tree stumps, and find 3, by that time you already need 10 more, and god knows you're not gonna find a way to make herbal antibiotics in the meanwhile. I'm talking loot abundance 300%. Three jars of honey, constant travel, constant looting, no herbal antibiotics, no regular antibiotics, level 4 in looting perks, no dew collector, and I've played this game since Alpha 12 - I know what I'm doing. If you spawn far away from a city and you get infected, you are boned.
Woohoo for "realism" lemme just eat some glass jars and die of starvation next to a campfire with a cooking pot after powerjumping myself over a 20ft fence. lol hope I find some books to eat. Every time I'm traveling somewhere, yeah, it doesn't feel like a shopping trip anymore, and there is some survival to it, but now it's basically pumping a stamina bar while training my eyes on an objective, it feels like a chore now.
Yeah anyone can say what they want but I feel like TFP don't play their own game. Every time I read something from them it's about their "realism" or it's about their "desired way of playing the game" but they half-ass both of them.
I'm loving what they're doing with the POIs and the building mechanics. I got a few gripes with this game but I can never stop coming back to it. I hope they just listen to others for a change; repeatedly trying to figure why they chose to do the game like this has me noticing that the only answer will come about with a full psychoanalysis.
Anyway, glass jars removed. Boo. Need myself a step scooter so my pinky doesn't cramp from holding shift as I march toward honey, water and books xd